The Beginning of a Relationship
by Farangis
Summary: Hermione made a strong impression on Blaise by thrusting a naked Draco Malfoy into his arms BZHG, written for the IATQO Secret Santa exchange


Note: This is a fic I wrote a while ago for the Secret Santa Exchange at Quiet Ones. The requirements of the fic are posted below.

As usual, this is not intended to reap profits in anyway.

44. Name/Pen Name: SkoosiePants

Pairing of the fic you want: Blaise/Hermione

Rating(s) of the fic you want: PG-13 - R

3 - 5 Things you want your gift to include:

1. Millicent being reluctantly cheerful

2. Blaise Hermione are not an established couple (at the beginning)

3. Humor fic

4. Someone is accidentally transfigured into a kitten

5. Ron has temporarily lost his memory

What you don't want your gift to include: angst, dark fic, unnecessary descriptions of clothes, Voldemort or the war.

* * *

Blaise Zabini liked to watch people. That isn't to say, he's the peeping-tom of Slytherin. Rather, being the quiet, intuitive person that he is, he simply enjoyed observing more than interacting, preferred to distinguish friends from enemies by their body language and not their words- a skill he found extremely useful as a Slytherin.

Therefore, although he shared classes with Hermione Granger for years, he never really talked to her at all. Not even once, if one discounts that polite "excuse me" in fourth year when they accidentally bumped into each other in the library.

They probably would have gotten through seven years of school with that "excuse me" as their solitary verbal exchange, had Crabbe not managed to screw up his transfiguration spell on that beautiful spring afternoon in their sixth year. The result was quite disastrous - it ended with Hermione throwing a naked Malfoy into his arms.

* * *

Ironically, the afternoon had started out innocent enough. He was reading in the Slytherin common room, occupying an entire couch since it was still relatively early and the dorms were half-empty. Pansy Parkinson occupied the other couch, painting her toenails. Crabbe and Goyle were up in their dorm room practicing the newest transfiguration spell, door tightly shut upon Pansy's insistence. It was a smart move on the girl's part. Those two had the combined talent of a warty orange toad, so Merlin knows what their wands were actually sprouting at the moment.

However, it also proved to be Draco Malfoy's undoing. Suddenly the portrait hole opened with a resonating bang as Malfoy strode in angrily, muttering under his breath. Before either Pansy or Blaise could issue a warning, Malfoy had climbed up the stairs and yanked the door open.

There was a brief scream, which was cut off by a loud popping sound and a puff of smoke. By the time the smoke cleared, Blaise was staring up at a small white kitten with gray eyes.

"He was supposed to be a coconut!" A voice wailed from inside the room.

For a second, Blaise simply stared and marveled at the fact someone could fuck up such a simple spell so fantastically. His amusement was cut short however, when the blur of fur darted through the common room and disappeared from the portrait hole, which Malfoy, now an _adorable_ kitten, had neglected to shut on his way in.

By the time they scrambled into the corridor after him, Draco-Malfoy-the-Kitten-with-Fluffy-Ears was nowhere in sight.

Pansy had burst into tears instantly, threatening to feed the idiot duo to the giant squid, and a search party was formed on the spot.

Of the four that set off looking for their housemate, Blaise was the most indifferent about the entire thing. Of course, laws governing irony and all things fluffy demanded him be the one to find Malfoy.

They also demanded Malfoy to be found cuddled in the arms of a Gryffindor - one Hermione Granger to be exact.

Apparently, Crabbe's spell, whatever the hell it actually _was_, made the recipient lose his or her personality along with physical form. So when Blaise finally managed to locate Malfoy at the entrance to the Gryffindor tower, he was purring and rubbing against Hermione's calf for all his worth. She appeared slightly confused, peeling down at the attention hungry animal curiously.

Blaise coughed: "Granger."

She lifted her eyes and her shoulders tensed immediately when she caught sight of the Slytherin badge on his robe. Without taking her eyes off him, she bent down and scooped the kitten into her arms: "Zabini. What do you want?"

Blaise was rather impressed that she actually knew his name. Smiling at her protective gesture toward the fluffy kitten, his indigo eyes danced with amusement as he answered: "Just thought you'd want to know... that is Draco Malfoy you are holding in your arms."

Hermione's reaction was very amusing, to say the least. She blinked, looked down at the kitten in her arms, looked back up at him, and blinked again.

Then it clicked. Her eyes widened to near impossible size and with a startled yelp, she thrust the kitten into his arms like it was a hot potato.

He reflexively caught the small animal.

Of course, that just HAD to be the moment when the spell ended. Of course, the cloths just HAD to disappear somewhere along that messed up transfiguration spell and of course, Hermione Granger emitted a blood curdling scream upon seeing Malfoy's lily-white ass perking up at her, naked as the day he was born.

The next morning, Millicent Burstrode caught Blaise on his way out of the common room. She was obviously heart broken, judging from the forced and extremely fake smile on her face as she congratulated him on "winning the love of our resident playboy." That was when he found out - his name was in every school paper's headline that morning, accompanied by a picture of him holding Draco Malfoy, naked as the day the prat was born. Suddenly the name "Blaise Zabini" was known to everybody in the whole entire school - surprising what an angsty, secretive, homosexual and completely non-existent love affair could do for one's popularity.

It was rumored that Lucius Malfoy nearly chewed his shackled wand hand off in an attempt to escape Azkaban and strangle his unruly son.

* * *

Blaise soon found out that there really are two sides to every coin. In the end, he decided to view his entire "gay lover extraordinaire" predicament with amusement, because it made Hermione his friend.

He had no idea how liberating it would feel, to be able to talk to one person for hours on and never get bored. They debated on just about anything and everything, from historically significant battles in the wizarding world to the merits of muggle aviation. It also felt good, to read or write in the library in companionable silence next to her, sharing knowing smiles and a packet of tea biscuits.

Occasionally, a snide comment or two about their respective houses would be exchanged, but without any actual spite or malice. When losing a debate, Hermione would put her hands on her hips and huffily inform him that he was a manipulative Slytherin prat, all the while her lips twitched with barely contained laughter. His eyes would twinkle with mirth in response, and he would put on his best drawling voice and tell her that she was being a typical one track minded Gryffindor. They would share a laugh, and then go on talking about whatever it was they were talking about.

Time passed, and their friendship grew, despite skepticism from all of their housemates. Blaise became utterly protective of his Gryffindor friend, glaring at whoever dared to call her a mudblood in his presence, much the same way Harry or Ron would. Therefore, it came to no surprise that when the mishap with Weasley happened in Potion's, he willingly got drenched in a vat of slime for her.

It all started earlier of the week when the infamous Weasley twins fed their younger brother a concoction that temporarily erased his memories. But the potion worked in ways more complicated than a simple Obliviate spell - it only erased things that the person didn't particularly want to remember.

Therefore, Ron retained his memories of all his friends and family. He even remembered all the upcoming Quidditch match schedules. But naturally, he couldn't be relied upon to remember one single thing about one single school subject.

Madam Pomfrey informed them that tempering with a memory potion is dangerous and may result in permanent memory loss, therefore they just have to let it wear off naturally. Ron didn't care - he was actually happier than not about the entire situation, since it gave him an excuse not to take any exams and quizzes.

However, letting a Gryffindor who had no idea what they were supposed to be doing into potions is utterly dangerous business, especially when Snape was in a particularly nasty mood.

Now, Professor Severus Snape was never an overly benevolent person to start with. Hell, he thrilled in making little Gryffindors miserable. However, since Ron didn't want to remember anything unpleasant, not only did he forget all of the potion recipes he ever learned, he also conveniently forgot what a pompous git Snape is.

To say Snape was unnerved when Ron Weasley smiled brightly at him was the understatement of the year. It served to make him particularly nasty, and Ron's "I'm so cute and hopeless can I not do work" smile soon turned into a "Holy Merlin's balls what deep shit in the nine hells did I get myself into" grimace.

Blaise watched in sympathy as a flustered Weasley turned his color changing potion into some... thing that assumed the most disgusting shade of puke apple green he had ever seen. However, that sympathy soon turned into alarm when he noticed Weasley's cauldron starting to shake violently, and Hermione was sitting oblivious one seat before the disaster that is about to strike.

What happened next was completely instinctive on Blaise's part. With lighting fast moves that would have put Harry Potter to shame, he yelled a warning, leapt out of his seat, jumped over three rows of students - stepping on Theodore Nott's shoulder and Draco Malfoy's shiny head in the process, and grabbed Hermione out of her seat, covering her body with his own, just in time to hear the caudron explode behind him.

He ended up earning a scratch on the left arm, a robe drenched in odorous green slime, several baleful glares from his housemates, and a detention - the first given to a Slytherin by their head of the house this semester.

But it all seemed worth it, when he walked out of the class after getting an earful from Snape about how recklessly he behaved, to find Hermione waiting for him by the door.

"Hey." She smiled rather shyly, with a faint blush on her cheeks, "Thanks… for saving me."

"Oh, it was nothing." He shrugged.

She looked pointedly at his custom tailored and completely ruined silk robes (his mother is going to throw a fit). Blaise cleared his throat: "Ok, so it's a rather expensive nothing. But still, don't worry about it."

"Why?" She asked softly, and Blaise suddenly knew - that _she knew_. Hogwarts resident bookworm or not, girls have a knack of telling who fancies them. They always do.

He shuffled his feet nervously, but decided to take a shot at it anyway. She hadn't smacked him yet, and that ought to be a good sign, right?

"Well... you really can't help doing these kinds of things for the girl that you like. I mean, you know, sending flowers, buying chocolates, volunteering to drench in slimy potions in their place... that sort of thing."

Merlin, did that sound as bad to her as it was to him? Note to self: never try to smooth talk, EVER again.

Luckily, Hermione didn't seem to notice that he babbled like an idiot. She actually looked kind of surprised, like she didn't expect to be right about his feelings for her.

"Really? You... like me?"

"Yeah." Blaise swallowed, "Err… Is that a bad thing?"

The next thing he knew, Hermione had thrown herself in his arms and was hugging him so tight that she almost cut off his oxygen supplies.

Something warm and bubbly began to form in Blaise's chest. But he had to remind her gently: "Hermione, I'm covered in slime… smelly green slime."

"'Tis alright." She had her eyes closed and she was smiling and she was honestly the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, "I don't care if you are covered in Snape grease."

Blaise wrinkled his nose: "I don't think I care for the insinuation here." He said dryly.

Hermione giggled and then after a minute or two released him, much to his regret.

"Well, what should we do now?" She asked.

"Pardon?"

She blushed a little: "Well, you said you like me, and I... I like you too. So..."

Blaise's eyes lit up: "What do you say to a date in Hogsmeade this weekend?"

Hermione smiled with relief and obvious pleasure: "I'd like that."

"Great. I'll see you at the library tonight?" Blaise watched her smile her consent. Before he lost his nerves, he bent down quickly to steal a kiss from her.

It was nothing overly explosive, nor did it lead to them naked, writhing on the floor, but it was sweet and warm and full of promises, as a first kiss should be. So when Blaise finally headed to the dungeons to change into something presentable, he was wearing a rather goofy grin and humming, detentions and ruined cloths all but forgotten.

Unknown to the blissful couple, Snape was standing in the shadows inside his doorway and scowling darkly at their back.

First Ron Weasley had smiled at him and now Blaise Zabini had snogged Hermione Granger in the hallway. And from the look of things, more snoggings were sure to follow.

Damn it! He needed a bloody vacation.

End

* * *

So... here you go. I have to say, I never imagined myself writing a Blaise x Hermione pairing, but like most ofthe other pairings I adore so far, it was a few well written fanfics that got me hooked on the idea. I know many of you asked for the final chapter of "Owl Posts", I'm extremely sorry to say I have not even started on it yet. Please forgive me, I have been working on several other projects for the last half a year, mostly my Chinese writings. I hope to get another book published in Taiwan, sometime this year. But I still love DHr, so please, bear with me, I will try to finish it the best I can. 


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